


A Little Fairy Tale Crisis

by BlushingDragon



Series: Bite-Size Drabbles, Dragon Age Edition [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Married Couple, Prompt Fic, The Winter Palace (Dragon Age), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Women Loving Women, gay cuteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 07:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19865947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlushingDragon/pseuds/BlushingDragon
Summary: “Leliana, I’ve been denying it, but I can’t ignore it anymore. We have a crisis on our hands.”“We can’t have a crisis—My schedule is already full,” The Nightingale insisted lightly, looking up from her reports to smile indulgently at her wife.--The Warden-Commander has some opinions about the up-coming Winter Palace mission.





	A Little Fairy Tale Crisis

**Author's Note:**

> or, I Try To Gauge How Many Times I Can Use the Phrase "Her Wife" In A Single Oneshot

“Leliana, I’ve been denying it, but I can’t ignore it anymore. We have a crisis on our hands.”

“We can’t have a crisis—My schedule is already full,” The Nightingale insisted lightly, looking up from her reports to smile indulgently at her wife. Ariel Amell was many things, but under specific kinds of pressures, she could be a bit of an alarmist: faced with an Archdemon, she could grit her teeth and smile, but one words about baby gryffins or her newest Warden recruits—that were, confusingly, also called Baby Gryffins every so often—could bring real tears to her eyes.

Ariel had her head tipped back against the back of the settee, her once-shorn short brown hair finally long enough that it was hanging down to her shoulders, close to the length she’d maintained in the Blight. She regarded her wife, the Nightingale, the Spymaster of the Inquisition, her Leliana, with half-lidded dark brown eyes.

“You’re right,” allowed Ariel, “It may not be a crisis if we go and head it off, right this moment.” She turned in her seat to face her wife, arm still resting across the back of their furniture to rest her hand on Leliana’s shoulder. “We cannot allow the image of the Inquisition—or you—to be tarnished… by those horrible red suits.”

Leliana laughed unexpectedly, and some tightness hiding behind her ribs eased a little at the sound, and the sight of her wife throwing her head back recklessly for the first time in a long while, and Ariel pressed on.

“I’m serious, Leli, it’s going to clash horribly with your hair, not to mention the _boots_. _Boots,_ Leliana. I did not kill the Archdemon for the opportunity to go to the Winter Palace with you and be wearing _boots_ after you exposed me to the world of pretty shoes.”

“Did Josie not tell you, my love?” said Leliana once she caught her breath, and grasped Ariel’s hand. “Thankfully, those horrible garments are only for the first night of the festivities. To show a united front, so she says. Fashion _is_ more of Josie’s area on this type of scale nowadays.”

Ariel sighed dramatically, and slid over to rest her head on Leliana’s shoulder. “Then I can dream of the swish of skirts in a lovely dance without reality bursting my bubble too loudly, hmm?”

Leliana’s smile softened brought one hand—ungloved, for once—raised to languidly stroke her wife’s hair. “A very fairy tale sort of dream, my love. You did love my stories, I should not be surprised.”

“I learned from the best person I know that you always need to take a moment, in dark times, to spin a story to brighten the next day,” murmured Ariel, and pressed a kiss to her wife’s cheek. “A fairy tale seems just like what you need.”

A hint of concern colored Leliana’s smile, and she reached to stroke Ariel’s cheek, her thumb pausing where crow’s lines sprouted from the corners of her wife’s brown eyes. The Warden-Commander’s façade of few worries and happy dreams dropped under the gaze of her wife, and Ariel looked tired, deeply fatigued in the way that Leliana hadn’t seen on _anyone_ since the Blight.

“You need it too, cherie. Don’t forget yourself.” She didn’t need to speak of how Ariel was, first and foremost, a Healer with her magic, and was more likely to collapse of exhaustion from frantically slinging spells of support and healing than actual wounds. _That_ was a long and practiced conversation, and didn’t bear bringing up again today.

Ariel smiled, leaned into the hand on her cheek. “It’s a luxurious Orlesian business trip for us, then. We’ve earned it.”

**Author's Note:**

> "Her Wife" counter: 8 times, pretty good for 600 words
> 
> Ariel, during the actual mission: OUR NEXT VACATION IS GOING TO BE IN RIVAIN, LELIANA.


End file.
